"Put simply, this is total bullshit." [View all]

'Trump, Elections and the Opposition's Strategic Depth'

"President Trump has a new post up on Truth Social today in which he claims that states only run elections and count ballots as agents acting at his direction as president of the United States. The key lines are 'the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tell them …' He claims he’s going to issue an executive order to ban voting by mail and any voting machines he doesn’t like."

"Put simply, this is total bullshit."

"The president has basically nothing to do with election administration. States run American elections. Period. Congress, within certain parameters, can make laws with standards that states must apply. But states still administer them. This is a foundational, constitutionally-mandated and structural feature of the American republic. Trump’s claims are so far from anything even remotely legal or constitutional that I doubt even the corrupted federal judiciary will have much truck with it."

"But Trump will definitely try. We already know this. So this is a reminder not only of the established and clearly delineated constitutional role of states in administering federal elections. It’s a reminder of the critical role of the separate sovereignty of the states, a sovereign authority that is separate from the hierarchy of federal power even as its law is inferior to federal law."

Continued at link:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-elections-and-the-oppositions-strategic-depth